The Imperial Student Xu Quan was from Wuzhou. One day, leaving his home village and hurrying by water towards Hangzhou, he rode a rice boat, seated each day atop the rice sacks with his feet folded beneath him, and nobody realized that an illness affected his feet. It happened that, one day, the boat leaked, so the boatman asked him to step onto the shore, in order to stop up the hole. When, the job being finished, he was invited back on board, the water had risen under heavy rain, and everyone bared their feet to step aboard. His fellow passengers noticed that his toes were all as short as a little toe, and asked him about it. He replied: “When I left my mother’s womb, my toes all pointed backwards. After two years had passed, it happened that a Daoist came along and insisted on looking at me, so the wet-nurse wrapped me up and took me out to show him. The Daoist ordered her to cook up a young lamb, and use the lambskin to wrap my feet overnight. The next day at dawn they were unwrapped, and it turned out that my toes all pointed forwards. On examination they were all this size and length.” He subsequently passed the imperial examinations.
[144] Duya Guiyuan was from Jinhua. At the beginning of the Song Shaoxi era (1190-94), he arrived at Longquan at Guacang, passing his days in singing praises, and, because he suffered from arthritis and both feet were stiff and spasming, he tottered along on wooden clogs, begging in the market. On the seventeenth night of the eighth month in the guichou year of the Chunyou era,[1] he was squatting by Magistrate Zhang’s back gate. It was already the third watch (11pm to 1am), and the moonlight was as bright as day. He saw a person, wearing a dark soft hat, black ribbon and white scholar’s robe, who descended from on high and, stepping forward slightly, addressed Yagui: “Why would you be here so deep in the night?” He said: “Due to illness and fatigue I cannot go anywhere.” The person selected various weeds from the roadside, rubbed them and broke them apart, then mixed them with ditchwater into a kind of pellet, which he gave to him, saying: “You should eat this.” Yagui realised that this was no ordinary person, and swallowed it without suspicion. The person then said: “Come back tomorrow night and meet me here.” They then departed. Yagui felt a stirring within his belly, becoming restless and unable to settle himself, dragging himself onto the Jichuan Bridge, leaning against the railing and dozing. After a long time he awoke and found he could stretch his feet a little, and trying to stand while holding the balustrade, his bones making chirping sounds like birdsong, he found himself able to walk. The next night he waited for the other person, but they didn’t come back. Yagui travelled around talking to people, but never found his whereabouts.
Anon., Huhai xinwen yijian xuzhi, 後1.143-44 (Tale 252):
仙醫足疾
徐上舍洤，婺州人。一日，自鄉泛舟趨杭，乘米舟，每日坐於米袋之上，惟疊足坐，人亦不知其有疾也。忽一日，舟漏，梢子請上岸，將塞舟。事畢請入時，水潦稍漲，皆跣足而入，同舟人見其足大小指皆短，從容問之，彼曰：「自出母胎，一足指皆向後。越二年，忽有道人來，必欲見，乳母抱出示之。道人命烹一小羊，用羊皮裹其足，一宿，次早掀開，則其指皆向前，但視足指有大小長短耳。」後亦登第。
[144] 杜亞歸元，金華人。宋紹熙初，到括蒼龍泉歌唱度日，因病風，兩足拘攣，木屐曳行，丐於市。淳祐癸丑八月十七夜，蹲於張通判後門，已三鼓矣，月明如晝，見一人青巾皁絛白襴衫，自最高軒下，行至其前少許，謂亞歸曰：「夜深何故在此？」曰：「病倦，去不得也。」其人於路旁采雜草，挼碎，掬溝之污水若彈然，授之曰：「汝可食此。」亞歸亦意其不凡人也，餌之不疑。其人曰：「明夜再來會我于此。」遂去。亞歸覺腹中攪戚不能自安，曳行至濟川橋上，倚柱假寐。良久，方覺其一足略能伸，試扶欄起立，骨磔磔然有聲，自此能行。次夜候之，其人不復來矣。亞歸遍以語人，後不知所在。
[1] This is 11 September 1253, but the Chunyou era (1241-53) had already finished some months before, on 30 January 1253.
Yuan Haowen 元好問, Chang Zhenguo 常振國 (ed), Xu Yijian zhi 續夷堅志 (Continued Records of the Listener), and Anon., Jin Xin 金心 (ed.), Huhai xinwen yijian xuzhi 湖海新聞夷堅續志 (Continuation of Records of the Listener with New Items from the Lakes and Seas) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986).
Zhiguai Translations 